McDowell County voters back Hamby, Maynard in primary results

McDowell County voters gave Joshua Hamby a narrow edge in the Democratic race for State Senate District 6, backing him 280 to 261 over Wyatt Lilly. In the Republican primary, county voters leaned to incumbent Mark Maynard, who led Jeff Disibbio 163 to 134, with the rest of the vote divided among the other candidates.

Those local numbers mattered because McDowell was only one piece of Senate District 6, which also includes Mercer, Mingo and Wayne counties. District-wide, Lilly won the Democratic nomination with 1,770 votes to Hamby’s 1,486, showing that McDowell’s support for Hamby was not enough to carry the four-county district. Maynard, meanwhile, emerged from a Republican field that also included Eric Porterfield and Edwin Ray Vanover, giving McDowell voters a say in a contest that will help shape who represents the coalfields in Charleston.

The county results underline how McDowell can be decisive in some contests and outweighed in others. Hamby, a Mercer County native with deep family roots in McDowell County, ran with local name recognition across the district. Lilly put clean drinking water for Mingo and McDowell counties at the center of his campaign. Disibbio focused on reviving the economy, improving infrastructure and supporting education in Southern West Virginia. Those priorities are not abstract for McDowell residents, where the next senator will help influence budgets, road funding, school support, utility oversight and other state decisions that hit daily life.

Maynard’s Republican win came as WOAY called him the District 6 winner at 7:17 p.m. on May 12, and Lilly was called the Democratic winner at 9:50 p.m. the same night. The primary capped a campaign calendar that began with filing from Jan. 12 through Jan. 31, followed by early voting from April 29 through May 9 and Election Day on May 12. The seat carries a base salary of $25,652.25 and a four-year term, making the winner part of the Senate bloc that will help decide how much attention McDowell gets in Charleston.

The broader legislative board was also taking shape that night, with Rollan Roberts winning the Republican primary in District 9 and Vince Deeds taking District 10. For McDowell County, the District 6 results showed something more specific: local voters favored Hamby and Maynard, but the county’s choices only partly matched the larger district, where the next senator will have to answer to four counties with overlapping but not identical needs.